Serene in this consciousness, the old woodsman dwelt in a certain sweet
and gentle rumination of his own. Among the finer instincts of his being
many subtle mysteries of the forest found their correspondences. The
feeling of these satisfied him entirely, though of course he was
incapable of their intellectualisation.

The days succeeded one another. The camps by the rivers or in the woods
were in essential all alike. The shelter, the shape, and size of the
tiny clearing, the fire, the cooking utensils scattered about,
the little articles of personal belonging were the same. Only
certain details of surrounding differed, and they were not of
importance,--birch-trees for poplars, cedar for both, a river bend to
the northwest instead of the southwest, still water for swift, a low
bank for a high; but always trees, water, bank, and the sky brilliant
with stars. After a little the day's progress became a myth, to be
accepted only by the exercise of faith. The forest was a great treadmill
in which men toiled all day, only to be surrounded at night by the same
grandeurs and littlenesses they had that morning left. In the face of
this apparent futility time blew vast. Years were as nothing measured by
the task of breaking through the enchanted web that enmeshed them.

And yet all knew by experience, though no one of them could rise to a
realisation of the fact, that some day their canoe would round the bend
and they would find themselves somewhere. Then they could say to
themselves that they had arrived, and could tell themselves that between
here and their starting-point lay so many hundred miles. Yet in their
secret hearts they would not believe it. They would know that in reality
it lay but just around the corner. Only between were dream-days of the
shifting forest heavy with toil.